10
AIR TRANSPORT.
G-ATMI, the Court Line HS.748, at Prestwick
last month en route for the Leeward Islands,
where it will be on lease for the third time
to Leeward Islands Air Transport. Court Line
has now bought a stake in the West Indian
airline
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public demand and matching their services to it, or that
they should be asked to act against their commercial judge
ment. It is however envisaged that the CAA, in addition to
the airlines, should be required to play a positive role and
should itself try to establish what services users want, so
that it can perform an initiating function at the centre of
British aviation, where leadership and innovation have been
so conspicuously lacking in the past.
It is therefore hoped that the CAA would be required to
have continuing consultations with users of both cargo and
passenger services and with the airlines. In this way, the
CAA would be in a position to direct airlines' attention to
areas where services were inadequate, and licence applica
tions could be considered, not in isolation as hitherto, but
in the context of the whole network of existing services
and their relationship to user demand.
A case could be made for a statutory consultative body
representing users, but it might be more appropriate for
the CAA to consult representative bodies, such as the
ABCC, about demand for air services. Chambers of Com
merce broadly represent industry and commerce and a
significant proportion of air-transport users in all areas
of the country; organised on a regional basis, and affiliated
to the central association in London, means are available
for rapidly sounding out user opinion on a national,
regional and local basis.
The proposed guidance includes a number of precepts
for the CAA to follow with regard to licensing; but here
again they are so general as to verge on the platitudinous
and do not face fundamental issues. The association
believes that the air transport industry is suffering its
biggest-ever crisis in part at least because the public is no
longer prepared to accept artificially high prices and an
unnecessary and unreal distinction between scheduled and
charter services.
It is therefore suggested that the CAA be asked to
undertake a fundamental re-examination of existing
licensing arrangements, and of the distinction between
scheduled and non-scheduled services, so as to create a
very much simpler and more credible air-fare and cargo-
tariff structure with the minimum of restrictions. The
international aspects would of course also have to be
considered.
It would be most desirable in any case for the CAA to
be consulted on all international negotiations over UK
traffic rights, and to have powers over clearances for
foreign operators wishing to land in Britain.
The Act requires the CAA to pay its way and it is pro
posed that the guidance will stipulate that it should become
self-supporting not later than 1977-78. This requirement
will inevitably result in substantial increases in charges
which will ultimately have to be met by users. We suggest
that the guidance should require the CAA to phase the
imposition and increase of charges gradually over the
six-year period, with the maximum possible prior notice
and consultation, as is appropriate in a monopoly situation.
The association has consistently pointed to the need for
a national airports plan and policy; since airports and air
services are necessarily interdependent, both should be
considered jointly by the .CAA in the light of existing
and potential demand. It is widely recognised that the
unco-ordinated and haphazard provision of airports has
resulted in wasted resources, unnecessary duplication and
plain bad siting in a significant number of cases; this in
turn has resulted in a distorted pattern of air services
related to these airports.
Not only should there be an airports policy and plan
to relate airports to each other, but the plan itself should
be related to the provision of surface transport services,
regional planning and environmental considerations. The
importance to regional development of fostering provincial
air services should also be underlined.
In short, the association believes that there is an un
answerable case for the positive planning and co-ordination
of airports by the CAA on a national basis in consultation
with owners, users and airlines, and the CAA should be
consulted when surface transport and regional develop
ment policy is considered. The vague responsibilities of
the CAA for aerodromes under Section 33(2) of the Act
need to be backed up by a specific requirement in the
guidance that it must play an active and positive role in
this field.
MORE VISCOUNTS FOR BMA
A PACKAGE deal for the acquisition of South African
Airways' fleet of seven Viscounts 800s is understood to be
in final stages of negotiation by British Midland Airways.
SAA plans to withdraw all its Viscount services by
February, replacing the type with 737s or 727s on routes
to Rhodesia and South-West Africa.
LAKER DISCLOSURE SOUGHT
THE US Civil Aeronautics Board has ordered Laker
Airways to submit complete documentation on all its
charters to the USA during the past six months by January
27. The documentation will be scrutinised by the CAB's
Bureau of Enforcement. The board said that the airline
had not responded to repeated requests for information.
The CAB was "concerned over Laker's indifference," a
spokesman said.
This is the first time the CAB has invoked its powers
to require submission of information against a foreign
airline in connection with enforcement.